Darwin and the Northern Territory

As we were approaching Darwin, we were instructed to "adjust our timepieces" to local Darwin time. Now Darwin is located in the Northern Territory, and the NT, being adjacent to Queensland, you would think that you set your watch back one hour. Not so. The NT is one half hour behind Queensland, so we turned our watches back a half hour, and are now 13 1/2 hours ahead of Pittsburgh time. The Northern Territory, as the name implies, is not an actual state, but is a territory. The population of the NT is probably too small for statehood, even though the land area is quite large. The population of the NT is 239,000. It appears that all of the Northern Territory is considered to be "outback". Darwin is located in the extreme north part of NT. They call it the "Top End". It is a fairly small town. There are beautiful white flowers around here called Frangipani. They are not as beautiful as the Jacarandas of Brisbane, but they are everywhere and they are quite lovely. In 1974, Darwin was hit by a devastating cyclone, Cyclone Tracy, that destroyed almost the entire town, with only a building or two left standing. (It was the Hurricane Katrina of Australia.) So virtually the entire town has been rebuilt since the 70's. The weather is always hot here, and there are only 2 seasons: the wet season and the dry season. Right now, we are at the very end of the dry season, with the wet season likely to begin in November. Some more Australian oddities: they like to abbreviate words here. I already told you about brekky (breakfast). They also call your sunglasses your sunnies, and a costume is a cossie.